


Remus Lupin and his Nest of Illness

by QuirkyNeon (iforgetlikeanelephant)



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-14
Updated: 2015-10-14
Packaged: 2018-04-26 10:30:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,273
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5001292
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iforgetlikeanelephant/pseuds/QuirkyNeon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Remus has a cold and can't even cook a pot of noodles. Lily would take care of her roommate but she has work. Sirius is like a dog with a bone when taking care of a sick Remus, and tries his best to be helpful but really all he's good for is tea. James and Peter make vague appearances as in, they're not in here at all, but they are mentioned.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Remus Lupin and his Nest of Illness

**Author's Note:**

> okay so is it considered cheating in a class when you write fanfic for your assignment and all you do is change the names to make it an original creative piece? no? oh good

There’s a pot of noodles on the stove and Remus is standing in the middle of the kitchen with a blanket over his shoulders, trying to keep from sneezing directly into his food as he waits for the timer on the counter to go off. He’s still standing there, staring at the timer like it said something to offend him, when his roommate opens the front door and startles him into a sneeze that makes him groan. 

“Oh Remus, what are you doing out of bed? I texted you a few minutes ago to let you know that I would be home early to make you something to eat before my shift tonight,” Lily shakes her head as she takes in the sight of Remus swaddled in a blanket with his red nose making him seem even more pathetic than usual.

“‘m hungry,” he very nearly whines, sniffling against his wrist as he shuffles up to the stove to peek into the pot of noodles which, “Lily, I think there’s something wrong with the stove, it’s not boiling my water.”

Lily chokes on a laugh as she spots the problem. “That would be because you don’t have the stove _on_ , love,” she says a kindly as she can, reaching out to put a gently hand on Remus’s shoulder before she continues, “Now why don’t you go lay down and I’ll make you something to eat, okay?” 

Remus has never felt more ridiculous in his twenty-three years of living than in that moment, being told that he had been waiting for noodles to cook on a stove that _wasn’t even turned on_. “Right,” he agrees, letting Lily guide him to his nest on the living room couch, surrounded by used tissues and empty cups that at one time held tea.

“If you got rest like a normal person you wouldn’t get sick so easily, I swear it’s like you’re laid out at least once a month with some flu or another,” Lily fusses over him, tucking the blanket over his long legs as she makes sure he’s comfortable. “Now,” she says as she stands up straight, grabbing up a few of the scattered empty cups with dry tea in their bottoms, “I’ll make you noodles if you promise that the only place you’ll move to from this couch right here is your bed, and that you’ll take as many over the counter drugs as you can to fight this thing.”

Remus doesn’t bother arguing with her because he really is starving so he acquiesces, nodding his head and earning himself a smile. True to her word, Lily makes a pot of noodles in half the time it would have taken Remus and brings it to him on the couch. “Thank you, sorry I’m such a crap roommate,” he says as she hands over the bowl, the hot soup warming his persistently chilled fingers.

“You’re not crap! I mean your friends might be, but you are absolutely not. Speaking of your friends, I saw James on campus and after telling him in no uncertain terms that he should stop following me around like a creep, he asked after you. Apparently you haven’t been responding to his or Sirius’s texts and they thought you had died. Well, James actually said that he thought you had finally reached your final form, but I took that to mean the same thing,” Lily begins to say as she moves toward her room, leaving the door open so that she can still be heard by the ill man on the sofa as she changes into her work clothes. 

“Sirius and James have this idea that I’m a werewolf because I get ill so often, though it’s never around the full moon so I don’t actually know what they’re on about. And anyway, I’m pretty sure a werewolf wouldn’t end up swaddled on the couch while surrounded by tissues as often as I do,” Remus replies loudly enough to be heard by Lily after he swallows a few spoonfuls of soupy noodles from the bowl. “And anyway, if they asked Peter they would know that I was sick, I texted him just as soon as I woke up and couldn’t breathe through my nose,” he continues as Lily walks out of her room and back into his line of sight.

Lily shakes her head as she says, “You know as well as I do that Sirius and James forget how to interact with normal people when you’re not around, they’ve probably forgotten that you talk to Peter more when you are ill than you do them.”

Remus just shrugs and spoons more soup into his mouth, enjoying the warmth in his throat as Lily drops onto the end of the couch where his feet are and begins to tie her shoes. “I’ll drop James and Sirius a text after you leave, and if I know them, which I regrettably do, at least one of them will invite themselves over to check on me,” he says once he’s finished his noodles and Lily is standing up from the couch and getting ready to leave for work.

“Well, just make sure they don’t keep you up for too long, you need all the rest you can get! That’s the reason you get sick so often in the first place,” Lily insists as she grabs the bowl from Remus and goes into the kitchen to rinse it out.

“Yes, mum,” Remus says, only half joking as Lily comes out of the kitchen glaring at him, “I’ll make sure that all they do is make me tea and tuck me into bed, I swear it.”

“You’ll do well to remember that,” Lily says firmly as she grabs her purse from where she dropped it on the armchair closest to the door of the apartment, “I’ll see you some time tomorrow, Remus! And do try to get better.”

With that Lily is out the door and Remus is once again home alone in his Nest of Illness. He grabs his phone before he forgets and sends a text to both James and Sirius that reads _‘I’m not dead OR a werewolf I’m poorly and gross’_. He doesn’t even bother setting his phone down because he knows he’ll get a response quickly and he’s not disappointed when a handful of minutes later his phone is letting out a chirp to alert him to a new text. 

The text is from Sirius and all it says is _‘be there in 5. plz don’t die._ which causes Remus to roll his eyes and struggle to his feet to unlock the door. Since he’s up he takes a detour to the bathroom and by the time he’s unlocking the door he’s been able to hear knocking for a few minutes. “I was in the bathroom,” Remus explains as he swings the door open and sees the almost panicked look in Sirius’s eyes.

“I thought you _died_ , Remus! Died and were rotting and I was going to have to tell Evans that you died when I was supposed to be here!” Sirius practically shouts as he squeezes by Remus and then pulls him into one of the more dramatic hugs that he’s ever been a part of. 

Remus rolls his eyes but lets himself be hugged for a moment before he says, “I was taking a piss, not dying, but if you don’t let go of me now I may die from lack of oxygen.” Sirius lets go of him quickly after that, straightening the shoulders of Remus’s pajama top and closing the door to the apartment before ushering Remus back toward the couch. “And anyway,” Remus starts once he’s back on the couch, cocooned in blankets and with his feet resting in Sirius’ lap, “Why do you call Lily by her surname, you know that you’re actually her _friend_ , right? And since James is madly in love with her you do have to deal with her for the foreseeable future.”

“I call her by her surname because she does the same to me,” Sirius says with a sniff, “And also because she hates me.”

“She doesn’t _hate_ you,” Remus sighs, exasperated, “She just thinks that you and James are crap-probably because James practically stalks her _and_ the both of you are rude to Severus Snape, who just happens to be a childhood friend of hers.”

“Snape is a dick that doesn’t deserve to even _breath the same air_ as Evans, I don’t get what she sees in him,” Sirius says, disgust obvious on his face, “He’s a shitty racist dickbag that doesn’t deserve to _live_ let alone live _with friends_.” Remus just shakes his head and hands the television remote over to Sirius, the two of them having argued about this more than once, and lets the other man choose what they watch. It distracts Sirius from the conversation long enough that Remus thinks he’s actually going to drop it, until he asks suddenly, “You don’t think that Evans is actually _interested_ in that Snape freak, do you?”

Remus pinches the bridge of his nose and says, “For the one hundredth time _no_ , Lily is in no way romantically interested in Severus Snape, _but_ that doesn’t mean that James has a chance especially until he stops being, in her words, _‘fucking creepy as shit’.”_

“I think it’s romantic,” Sirius defends his friend as he’s not there to do it for himself, “And it’s not like James is actually doing anything, he just _happens_ to be in the same areas that she hangs out in. Now Snape, he’s always up to creepy things to get Evans’ attention.”

“They’re _friends_ , Sirius, they get coffee together and do homework, I don’t know how you consider that creepy,” Remus says and, wanting this conversation to end as quickly as possible, he cuts himself off with a hacking cough. “Could you get me tea, please,” he says in his best pathetic voice, the one he uses to trick people into doing things for him like making tea and feeding him. 

“I know what you’re doing, Moony,” Sirius says even as he gently moves Remus’s legs to the ground and gets up, going into the kitchen while he says over his shoulder, “And just for this, I won’t put any sugar in your tea.”

Remus isn’t bothered because he knows that Sirius is going to put a ton of honey in his tea, and that’s honestly sweet enough. “Thank you, Padfoot,” he says when the other man finally comes back with his hot cup of tea. 

“You’re welcome, nerd,” Sirius replies, smiling at him as he hands over the steaming cup of tea. 

—-

The next morning Remus wakes up feeling less like he’s near death and more like he’s just climbed out of the grave, his throat is dry and the light filtering in through his bedroom window is enough to make him wince in pain, his head throbbing to a beat the reminds him of something Sirius would listen to.

Speaking of Sirius, Remus rolls over in his bed just enough that he can see out of the door and toward the living room where he figures the other man ended up crashing after he helped Remus into bed. “Sirius?” Remus croaks out, wrinkling his nose at how his voice sounds as he repeats himself, louder this time.

“Good morning, Sunshine!” Sirius says as he stumbles his way into Remus’s bedroom, his long inky hair in a messy bun on the top of his head. 

“I will kill you and they’ll never find the body, Black,” Remus groans as he covers his head with the comforter and presses his face against his pillow.

Sirius snorts in amusement, “You wouldn’t kill me, you’d miss me too much.”

“Then I’ll cut all your hair off! Why are you in such a good mood, didn’t you sleep on the couch?” Remus very nearly whines, his voice muffled only slightly by the pillow he’s currently trying to bury his face in. 

“You would be the Delilah to my Sampson? How _dare_ you! And anyway, you know how comfortable your couch is, and I may have done a coffee run before you woke up,” Sirius says, his tone turning sheepish toward the end as Remus lowers the edge of his comforter to glare at him. 

Remus clears his throat before asking, “Did you happen to get me coffee as well, or is that why you have that dumb apologetic look on your face. You look like a kicked puppy, Sirius, stop it!” He coughs again, his throat raw as he finishes shortly, “Also, nice Biblical reference.”

“Well I’m not a theology major for nothin’ Remus! And as a matter of fact I did bring you back a coffee but Evans caught me coming back into the apartment with your key and snatched it from my hand before I could say it was for you! She’s a _monster_ when she’s been working the night shift, isn’t she?” Sirius rambles a bit, dropping onto the bed face first next to Remus in a sort of starfish move and ending up with his right arm landing on Remus’s head and causing the sick man to groan in pain.

“You’re not a theology major, Sirius, you’re a _mythology_ major, there’s a big difference. But yes, Lily is a bit off when she’s just gotten off of a night shift, so I actually believe your story, though there is a part of me that feels like I shouldn’t,” Remus says as he shifts around under the covers until he can push Sirius’s arm off of his face. “But since I’m now coffee-less and also feel like I’ve swallowed knives I believe that you should go make me tea, with a ton of sugar, and then leave me to sleep for the rest of my life,” he continues once he’s moved Sirius’s arm enough that he doesn’t feel he’s being smothered. 

Sirius kicks his legs against the bed for a moment before rolling off the bed and onto his back on the ground before jumping to his feet, causing Remus to first worry and then roll his eyes at his very dramatic friend’s actions. “Tea to the rescue! And extra honey because _you_ are extra sweet!” Sirius says, sweeping from the room with a bow and causing Remus, where he’s peeking out of the comforter, to roll his eyes so hard that he’s sure he nearly strains a muscle. 

Remus is almost surprised when Sirius comes back in a short few minutes later, a thermos under one arm and a mug full of tea in his other hand. “You were suspiciously quiet,” Remus says as he sits up and accepts the mug of tea, taking a sip and smiling when he realizes that Sirius wasn’t kidding about the extra honey. “Never mind, I don’t care why you were suspiciously quiet, you’re my favorite person, have I told you that lately?” Remus says as he sips quickly at his tea, trying to drink as much as he can while it’s hot. 

“You haven’t said it today, but it’s always nice to hear,” Sirius laughs as he settles on the foot of the bed, watching Remus drink his tea, “And I was being quiet because Lily is sleeping and I fear her wrath if I even so much as _accidentally_ wake her up.”

“True, she is a beast in the mornings,” Remus agrees, nodding behind his mug of tea. It’s silent in the room for a few moments, Sirius watching Remus sip at his tea and taking stock of the sick man in front of him. He notices the dark spots under Remus’s eyes, stark against the slight flush of his cheeks and his bright red nose, as he hands the thermos over to him. The silence between them is broken by Remus, which in and of itself is an unusual occurrence, asking in his most pathetic tone, “Will you please read my literature book to me? I have a report due during midterm and since I’ve been sick I haven’t been able to focus on reading it in a few days.” 

Sirius glares at him as he says, “If I had known this would be what taking care of you would entail I would have sent Peter or James over here instead of volunteering myself,” which is ridiculous considering he didn’t even think to tell Peter or James that he was going to take care Remus, just that he was going to check up on him and make sure he hadn’t finally turned into a werewolf. In fact, he only remembered to text James that morning to let him know that Remus was fine when he ran into Evans and she told him that James had been texting her to see if he too had been turned into a werewolf because he suddenly wasn’t answering his phone. 

Remus leans over, careful not to spill his tea, and grabs the book from his bedside table. “I only need to read a few more chapters, it’s not a dry read either. You might actually enjoy yourself,” he says as he practically forces the book into Sirius’s hands, the other man grimacing at the title.

“What even is _Walden; or, Life in the Woods_? Anyone that uses a semicolon in the title of a book has got to be a pretentious dickbag, who the hell does that? _Henry David Thoreau_ , are you serious? This man has _three names? Three?_ And I thought the _semicolon_ made him sound pretentious wow, these three names _absolutely_ make him pretentious. Why are you reading a book by this pretentious man, Remus, who hurt you?” Sirius questions, not quite believing that a book this pretentious actually exists in real life, and that some horrible teacher would assign it as reading is absolutely blowing his mind. 

“No one hurt me, Sirius, what the hell? And anyway, it’s a very interesting read and I’ve actually been enjoying it. So if you would be so kind as to keep your _ridiculous_ opinions out of my reading choices I would greatly appreciate it,” Remus replies, finishing off his tea and placing the empty mug on his bedside table before settling down into his comfortable pillows. “You should start reading now, before I kick you,” he says, wiggling a covered foot threateningly against Sirius’s side and raising an eyebrow when Sirius makes yet another unhappy face. 

“I’m going to do this, but only because I don’t want to be touched by your oddly long toes ever again,” Sirius finally says, pulling his feet up on the bed and sitting cross legged, facing Remus. With that he starts reading, only pausing a handful of times within the first chapter to roll his eyes and sigh before he finally looks up from the page at the end of that chapter to see Remus has apparently been passed out for a while if his quiet snoring is anything to go by. Looking at how comfortable and peaceful he looks, Sirius is both relieved that he can stop reading from the not at all surprisingly pretentious and _dry as hell_ book, and jealous at how easily he fell asleep. With that thought in mind he closes the book and crawls up the bed to place it on the table next to Remus’s bed, careful not to jostle the sleeping man as he does, and then flops face down on the bed, inches away from Remus and not caring as his own eyes close on their own accord and he feels himself drifting to sleep.


End file.
